A Delhi court has set March 20 as the date for executing the four convicts in the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case. It noted there was no legal bar, but rather an obligation to set the date. The latest ruling follows three postponements of the hanging in six weeks and adds a sense of finality in a sensational case in which the four had received the death sentence way back in 2013.
“Death warrants issued by this court with respect to condemned convicts Mukesh, Pawan, Akshay and Vinay shall now be carried into effect by hanging the convicts by the neck until they are dead on March 20 at 5.30 am,” said additional sessions judge Dharmender Rana.
Special prosecutor Irfan Ahmed, who moved a plea seeking setting the date of hanging, informed the court the convicts had exhausted all their legal remedies. Convict Pawan Gupta was the last convict in the case to exhaust the legal remedy of the President’s mercy. Rejection of his mercy plea brought an end to all judicial, Constitutional and administrative remedies to which a prisoner is entitled as a right before execution of death sentence.
Appearing for Pawan, Vinay and Akshay, advocate A P Singh said he would be meeting Pawan and then challenge the rejection of mercy plea. While he also wanted to meet Akshay to "discuss with him the future course of action", he conceded that there was no legal obstacle before judge Rana to set the date of hanging. He also prayed that the jail authorities be directed to permit the convicts to meet their counsels.
When it was urged that Akshay be informed about the status of his second mercy petition, the court stated that the jail superintendent was dutybound to do it. Judge Rana was of the view that the lawyers were at liberty to meet their clients as per the standard procedure of jail after complying with the formalities.
The state government had said that all legal remedies of the convicts have been exhausted and nothing survived now. And no notice was required to be issued, the prosecutor said. The court, however, stated that principles of natural justice are part of Article 21(right to life and personal liberty) of the Constitution and the sacrosanct principle of “audi alteram partem” (listen to the other side) couldn’t be ignored.
A day before the last scheduled day of hanging, the court had observed that the condemned convict shouldn't meet his creator with a grievance in his bosom that the courts of this country have not acted fairly in granting him an opportunity to exhaust all his legal remedies.
Case history
The 23-year-old physiotherapy intern, who came to be known as 'Nirbhaya' (fearless), was gang-raped and savagely assaulted on the night of December 16, 2012 in a moving bus in south Delhi. She died of her injuries a fortnight later in a Singapore hospital.
The convicts have used all leagal remedies, including review petitions and curative petitions in a staggered manner in the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court order on March 13, 2014 confirming the death sentence.
The last option of mercy petition before the President to escape the gallows was exercised by the convicts one by one.
